The Painted Man
Peter V. Brett
The stunning debut fantasy novel from author Peter V. Brett.The Painted Man, book one of the Demon Cycle, is a captivating and thrilling fantasy adventure, pulling the reader into a world of demons, darkness and heroes.AS DARKNESS FALLS, THE DEMONS RISEFor hundreds of years these creatures have terrorized the night, slowly culling the human population. It was not always this way. Men and women did not always cower behind protective magical wards and hope to see the dawn. Once, they battled the demons on equal terms, but those days, and skills, are gone.Arlen Bales lives with his parents on their isolated farmstead until a demon attack shatters their world. He learns a savage lesson that day: that people, as well as magic, can let you down.Rejecting the fear that kills as efficiently as the creatures, Arlen risks another path in order to offer humanity a last, fleeting chance of survival.
THE PAINTED MAN
PETER V. BRETT
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
HarperCollinsVoyager An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Published by HarperVoyager 2008
Copyright © Peter V. Brett 2008
Peter V. Brett asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Map by Andrew Ashton © HarperCollinsPublishers 2008
Internal artwork by Lauren Cannon
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780007276134
Ebook Edition © December 2008 ISBN: 9780007287758 Version: 2017-10-16
Dedication (#litres_trial_promo)
To Otzi, the original Painted Man.
Contents
Map
Section I (#litres_trial_promo)
TIBBETâS BROOK (#litres_trial_promo)
319
After the Return
1 (#litres_trial_promo)
Aftermath 319 AR (#litres_trial_promo)
The great horn sounded.
Arlen paused in his work, looking up at the lavender wash of the dawn sky. Mist still clung to the air, bringing with it a damp, acrid taste that was all too familiar. A quiet dread built in his gut as he waited in the morning stillness, hoping that it had been his imagination. He was eleven years old.
There was a pause, and then the horn blew twice in rapid succession. One long and two short meant south and east. The Cluster by the Woods. His father had friends amongst the Cutters. Behind Arlen, the door to the house opened, and he knew his mother would be there, covering her mouth with both hands.
Arlen returned to his work, not needing to be told to hurry. Some chores could wait a day, but the stock still needed to be fed and the cows milked. He left the animals in the barns and opened the hay stores, slopped the pigs, and ran to fetch a wooden milk bucket. His mother was already squatting beneath the first of the cows. He snatched the spare stool and they found cadence in their work, the sound of milk striking wood drumming a funeral march.
As they moved to the next pair down the line, Arlen saw his father begin hitching their strongest horse, a five-year-old chestnut-coloured mare named Missy, to the cart. His face was grim as he worked.
What would they find this time?
Before long, they were in the cart, trundling towards the small cluster of houses by the woods. It was dangerous there, over an hourâs run to the nearest warded structure, but the lumber was needed. Arlenâs mother, wrapped in her worn shawl, held him tightly as they rode.
âIâm a big boy, Mam,â Arlen complained. âI donât need you to hold me like a baby. Iâm not scared.â It wasnât entirely true, but it would not do for the other children to see him clinging to his mother as they rode in. They made mock of him enough as it was.
âIâm scared,â his mother said. âWhat if itâs me who needs to be held?â
Feeling suddenly proud, Arlen pulled close to his mother again as they travelled down the road. She could never fool him, but she always knew what to say just the same.
A pillar of greasy smoke told them more than they wanted to know long before they reached their destination. They were burning the dead. And starting the fires this early, without waiting for everyone to arrive and pray, meant there were a great many. Too many to pray over each one if the work was to be completed before dusk.
It was more than five miles from Arlenâs fatherâs farm to the Cluster by the Woods. By the time they arrived, the few remaining cabin fires had been put out, though in truth there was little left to burn. Fifteen houses; all reduced to rubble and ash.
âThe wood piles, too,â Arlenâs father said, spitting over the side of the cart. He gestured with his chin towards the blackened ruin that remained of a seasonâs cutting. Arlen grimaced at the thought of how the rickety fence that penned the animals would have to last another year, and immediately felt guilty. It was only wood, after all.
The town Speaker approached their cart as it pulled up. Selia, whom Arlenâs mother sometimes called Selia the Barren, was a hard woman, tall and thin, with skin like tough leather. Her long grey hair was pulled into a tight bun, and she wore her shawl like a badge of office. She brooked no nonsense, as Arlen had learned more than once at the end of her stick, but today he was comforted by her presence. Like Arlenâs father, something about Selia made him feel safe. Though she had never had children of her own, Selia acted as a parent to everyone in Tibbetâs Brook. Few could match her wisdom, and fewer still her stubbornness. When you were on Seliaâs good side, it felt like the safest place in the world.
âItâs good that youâve come, Jeph,â Selia told Arlenâs father. âSilvy and young Arlen, too,â she said, nodding to them. âWe need every hand we can get. Even the boy can help.â
Arlenâs father grunted, stepping down from the cart. âI brought my tools,â he said. âJust tell me where we can throw in.â
Arlen collected the precious tools from the back of their cart. Metal was scarce in the Brook, and his father was proud of his two shovels, his pick and his saw. They would all see heavy use this day.
âHow many lost?â Jeph asked, though he didnât really seem to want to know.
âTwenty-seven,â Selia said. Silvy choked and covered her mouth, tears welling in her eyes. Jeph spat again.
âAny survivors?â he asked.
âA few,â Selia said. âManie,â she pointed with her stick at a boy who stood staring at the funeral pyre, âran all the way to my house in the dark.â
Silvy gasped. No one had ever run so far and lived. âThe wards on Brine Cutterâs house held for most of the night,â Selia went on. âHe and his family watched everything. A few others fled the corelings and succoured there, until the fires spread and their roof caught. They waited in the burning house until the beams started to crack, and then took their chances outside in the minutes before dawn. The corelings killed Brineâs wife Meena and their son Poul, but the others made it. The burns will heal and the children will be all right in time, but the others â¦â